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Cabin in the Sky: 1940

NEW YORK -- On the second-floor terrace of the International Building at 51st Street near Fifth Avenue, a seven-room dwelling is under construction as the focal point in what is designed to be a home-building center and exhibit. It is being erected by the Rockefeller Home Center, successor to the Permanent Exhibition of Decorative Arts and Crafts (PEDAC).
The dwelling is of modern design by Edward D. Stone and the exterior is of redwood. In the first floor is a "three-purpose" room with a glass-enclosed side opening onto a terrace. Construction of the exhibition house, which is sponsored by Collier's magazine, is under direction of Irons & Reynolds, contractors.

When I was a kid in the 50's, if my Dad was hemmed in like that Plymouth, he would just gently push up against the Buick and push it a few feet to make room - that was when cars had real bumpers and most cars were manual transmission so you wouldn't risk breaking the parking pawl in the automatic tranny. Of course you had to worry about possibly locking bumpers! It's always SOMETHING, eh?

Three of the four lower wings of the Rockefeller Center buildings facing Fifth Avenue are named after foreign countries. You have the British Empire Building and La Maison Francaise on the other side of 50th Street from the International Building. On the International Building itself, completed in the late 1930's, the south wing was the Palazzo d'Italia, while the north wing - the one pictured here - was supposed to be called Deutsches Haus. What with the rise of Hitler and the deteriorating situation in Germany, however, that name became a complete non-starter, and this wing is rather uncreatively called the "International Building North" instead.

The car, I believe a Pontiac, sandwiched between the Packard and the Buick is going to have a tough time getting out of that tight space. His only hope is that the Buick leaves first. We can't tell if the Packard isn't landlocked as well.

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photo blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.